Artist Statement 

My series explore different systems of knowledge, both ones well known and some more esoteric, translating their philosophical concepts into aesthetic visual experiences.

Uniting my art is its conceptual inspiration rather than a consistent visual style. I frequently include words and symbols from many philosophic and religious systems thereby facilitating communication with viewers on both conscious and unconscious levels.

My art and life changed when I moved from New York City to Arizona in 1959. The desert became my mentor after two rafting trips down the Colorado River in the early 70’s.  Exposed to the dignity and continuity of nature’s abiding cycles, I felt the need to translate visually my reverence for the earth. These life-changing experiences morphed my early landscapes into a new aesthetic language. Often employing pilgrimage and ritual, I explored fire as an art form in an effort to go deeper into my practice and bring elemental energy into my painting. I mutilated and burnt large heavy scrolls of paper, incorporated fire, earth, paint and other materials until the paintings were transformed, recapitulating nature’s life cycle of ordering (birth), disordering (death), and reordering (rebirth).

Reading Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1963 activated my Feminism. Many other books impacted my art practice: Manley Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages; Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art; Edmund Sinnott’s The Biology of the Spirit; Jack Burnham’s Great Western Salt Works; Carol Christ’s Diving Deep and Surfacing; Thomas Berry’s The Dream of the Earth, a plea for planetary protection, as well as George Land’s Grow or Die: The Unifying Principle of Transformation. Suzi Gablik, a personal friend, made a lasting impression on my psyche and on my work with Has Modernism Failed? (1984) and The Reenchantment of Art (1991). Poetry also enriched and transmuted my painting, especially T. S. Elliot’s The Four Quartets, and the Tang Dynasty verses of Du Fu, Li Bai, and Wang Wei. Reading about and subsequently visiting the Rothko Chapel motivated me to create a participatory, contemplative environment.

My art practice is a devotional activity, an intuitive journey and lifelong quest to transcend brokenness and create reconciliation, transformation, and beauty. I focus on art’s potential for unifying people, helping us recognize the commonality of human experience.